Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of information handling system management, and more particularly to information handling system heat sink compatibility management.
Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
One difficulty that often arises with information handling system design is that excess thermal energy released during consumption of power to run electronic components tends to cause temperature increases that can damage the information handling system. In general, the central processing unit or units (CPUs) disposed within a housing create the most thermal energy, however, other components also add thermal energy, such as memory, graphics processing units (GPU's), communications cards, power supplies and even passive components disposed in a motherboard to maintain power within desired constraints. Generally, information handling systems include passive and/or active thermal management devices that help to dissipate excess thermal energy from within to outside of the housing. An example of a passive thermal energy transfer device is a heat sink placed on a CPU to draw heat away from the CPU. Active thermal management typically involves a cooling fan that blows cooling airflow through an information handling system housing and past heated components to transfer thermal energy outside of the housing. Typically, the speed of the cooling fan is managed based upon temperature sensor readings within the information handling system housing and integrated in some of the components. For example, CPUs sometimes integrate a number of temperature sensors that monitor thermal conditions at different locations within a CPU and provide sensed temperature readings to a fan controller, which applies sensed thermal conditions to set a cooling fan speed. Generally, cooling fan speeds are set to maintain predetermined thermal constraints without excessive airflow speeds so that acoustics from cooling fan operations and power consumption are kept to a minimum. If available cooling fan airflow speeds are insufficient to maintain thermal constraints, information handling systems typically reduce power consumption of components, such as by throttling CPU operations, and thus reduce thermal energy creation so that available cooling fan airflow will maintain thermal constraints.
Difficulties with management of thermal energy tend to arise most often when powerful processing components are disposed in smaller housings. Generally, more powerful processing components have greater power consumption and thus dissipate greater amounts of heat when consuming power. In contrast, smaller housings have reduced room for air with less air mass and restricted airflow paths so that greater airflow speeds from cooling fans with more torque are typically needed to accomplish the thermal transfer relative to larger housings. In particular, dense server information handling system platforms, such as 2 CPU socket or 4 CPU socket half-height blade servers, 1U, and 2U servers, often cannot simultaneously support maximum capacity, maximum performance and maximum features. Instead, configuration restrictions are typically used at manufacture to limit simultaneous population of unsupportable CPUs, memory modules (DIMMs), storage drives, I/O adapters, etc. . . . , so that supportable configurations include appropriate design and cost tradeoffs. One example of such a tradeoff is the physical volume and air-path width of CPU heat sinks versus CPU power consumption. Due to height constraints in dense server information handling system chassis, heat sinks grow horizontally relative to a CPU footprint in order to have adequate mass to support sufficient thermal conduction from high-power CPUs to allow full performance without thermal throttling. Although larger heat sinks allow higher power CPUs, the increased heat sink width extends over other component sockets or components, such as DIMM slots, so that fewer such components may be included. In one example embodiment, a server information handling system can include 24 DIMMs with 80 W CPUs, 20 DIMMs with 95-120 W CPUs, and 16 DIMMs with 130 W CPUs. In another embodiment, heat sink shapes are further adapted to accommodate components, such a GPU, by including a slot cut from the heat sink where the GPU resides.
Although tradeoffs between processing capabilities and thermal constraints are supported by different types of heat sinks, difficulties sometimes arise if a server information handling system is configured with an incorrect heat sink. If a high-power CPU has a small heat sink, then the CPU's capabilities will likely be underutilized as thermal throttling prevents the CPU from achieving full power. If a low power CPU has as large heat sink, then component sockets will be blocked from usage. For example, the large heat sink might block DIMM slots without adding any additional processing performance since a smaller heat sink could allow the CPU to operate at full speed. Heat sink characteristics may vary in confusing ways based upon other factors, such as the expected operating environment (fresh air versus conditioned cooling airflow), or variations in active cooling, such as different fan sizes and the use of liquid cooling. In some instances, closed loop logic that controls active cooling, such as a cooling fan controller, may become unstable or act abnormally with inefficient operations due to unexpected thermal responses with respect to characterized behaviors. End users often have difficulty in addressing such problems since heat sinks are generally passive thermal control devices that end users typically do not interact with.